It's I think a relic of my outdated upper-Millennial thinking that I'm worried that an AOC presidential run would be too soon for her. If she wants to run, she should run! She probably has as much of a chance as Bernie did (complimentary, I swear), but at least she forcibly drags the conversation leftward. She also forces the purity sickos in the DSA and WFP to contend with the compromises and games that need to be played at the highest levels to actually get things done.
I think any way she goes is correct. She could still stick with her House seat, and that would be cool too! Anything to keep her name in the conversation and fight the good fight.
I appreciate this and the original post. I don't have anything to contribute save a question: if not AOC, then who? Warren's time has passed. Bernie's too old. None of the other House members have a national profile save maybe Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib? Is there a visible left-leaning liberal governor I'm missing? Are we gonna have to stray into public figure territory? I'm genuinely asking here, I'm not at all trying to be snide. Because I've thought about this too and I don't know who that person can be, save her. And I'm not arguing it SHOULD be here but if there's some under-the-radar person, the time to show themselves is soon.
I had forgotten about Pritzker. I'd like to see him run regardless. As for Khanna, Silicon Valley is unpopular now and it's tough to see that getting better before 2028, especially if/when the AI bubble finally pops. He's too inseparable to rise above it.
I can't see Pritzker accepting a DSA endorsement or even acknowledging one if it was offered. That said, Pritzker is probably the party's best bet in 2028. (I will puke if I have to vote for Newsom.) Still, I want AOC to run and she has my vote.
From here on out, we need a socialist in the presidential primary. Will she or another socialist win in 2028? Barring another Great Depression between now and 2028, the answer is no. But we need her voice.
I don’t have any idea if he’d be interested and the last black guy to do it set some horrible things in motion that, in my opinion, have not yet run their course, but I am REALLY liking Joe Neguse these days.
An other issue is DSA’s failure until recently to take seriously the need for national coalition. The most powerful organization right now seems to be Indivisible. In a recent interview with Greenberg it seemed to me her position may not differ greatly from Bernie or AOC. As a DSA member very experienced in mass movements (last one was UFPJ re Iraq) I have been impatient with DSA’s lack of strategy for national coalition eg around ICE. We cannot back a candidate by leaning only on the wobbly labor union structure we have now. Indivisible has thousands of people who voted for or believe in Bernie and are involved in electoral politics.
Not looking forward to the arguments that will happen if AOC runs. I have leftist friends who find her 100% unacceptable. And I'm sympathetic to some of those arguments. She doesn't always have the best political instincts, and I'm personally not sure if she truly has the "juice" to make a successful run.
That said, I'm very anti-sectarian, so I'll err against intra-left molotov lobbing. But if two or more left-lane candidates announce and it doesn't get resolved pretty quickly, few hold grudges like a socialist scorned. Personally I'll support whoever clears out their orbit in the primary.
Socialists are very good at finding problems with candidates. And they're often not wrong. These can be principled objections about how far you compromise for electoral appeal, and especially imperialism. In my view imperialism is the biggest elephant in the room that's going to fuckin kill us all and progressives have been side-stepping it for decades. But the huge blindspot with these principled critiques tends to be, none of that matters much if leftists *never* win.
The American two party system really pits internal factions (factions which in a sane country w/ proportional representation would *never* be in the same party) against each other in a uniquely fucked way. It's an ideal system for knock-down-drag-out fights and deeply bitter anger.
The recent back and forth over the AOC endorsement in NYC and her shift in position on the Iron Dome made me much, much more hopeful that if she runs, she will both solicit and receive DSA's support, hugely reducing the risk of a split vote.
It sounds like it's union LEADERSHIP that's enamored of the DNC and backstage passes. It sure seems as tho union MEMBERS are more left-leaning. It's unfortunate that, as in corporate and political arenas, even union leadership ends up high on their own supply, giddy with their own perceived power, and failing to represent their members. Gee, and their can't possibly be any money exchange involved.
Back when I was more active in the Democratic Party, one of things that struck me about leaders of most unions was not so much that they were just addicted to access and feared being shut out but that there was great skepticism that leftist candidates could win general elections. Also, a lot of union guys I have known are genuinely hawkish in foreign policy views. I started the 2004 cycle as a Kucinich backer and almost every union guy I knew disliked him despite his very pro-union views. Why? "Department of Peace". Which admittedly was pretty dopey and very bad branding.
Very true, but I think for a lotta the guys I knew, it was more of a core belief than a pragmatic thing. Most Americans don't like unnecessary foreign wars but also, more so, don't like the idea of dialing down the military and appearing weak.
Well the two sentiments reinforce each other in practice. You may oppose war in the abstract, but nobody is going to march for there to be less food on their own plate, so if "stronger national defense" means more reliable work and more money in you and your colleagues' pockets you're not going to want to be seen as opposing that. After awhile it becomes more or less an article of faith in your shop that supporting pro-war candidates is what you do.
All of this is assisted by American unions being generally horrible at doing political education for the rank-and-file in the interest of not being seen as partisan -- and look how that's worked out for them.
I thought maybe we were in agreement, but you are looking at a much more abstract analysis than any of these people I am talking about would ever be thinking about. Nothing you write is untrue but you are adding layers of complexity that simply aren't there for most people. It is a gut level thing coming from how they are raised and educated, not a cohesive worldview. As for your second paragraph, all I can say is amen.
I want to amplify your comment about getting more union members. As you say, it is essential to build a larger, more powerful labor movement. I think it is also a condition precedent (as the philosophers say) to electing people to office who oppose neo-liberalism and who are committed to a pro-worker agenda. Politicians don't pay attention to workers because workers do not (yet) have sufficient leverage over politicians.
Nolan, you make great points, and I hope this group takes them seriously.
I also hope they're taking a page from Canada's Avi Lewis, who was recently elected as the federal NDP leadership. My sense is that they probably are. He ran a brilliant campaign, breaking fundraising and membership records. Here's a link to his website: https://lewisisleader.ca/
I'm so happy that we have an excellent, truly left wing candidate in Canada.
The last time I can remember thinking that there was a real possibility that a "left wing" candidate might take it all the way was right after the 1988 election, when Jesse Jackson had made the kind of inroads in the Democratic primaries, winning 13 of 54 primaries and caucuse, a far stronger showing than his first presidential campaign in 1984.. He appeared to be well positioned to lead his Rainbow Coalition to an even stronger finish, and maybe the nomination, in 1992. I have never understood why he decided not to continue to build on the momentum he had clearly demonstrated and run again in 1992. If anyone reading this post has any suggestions about why Jackson did not run, thereby opening the field to the neoliberal's Democratic Leadership Council's Bill Clinton, please post them here. Since Jackson failed to show up for 1992, no one else has come close to assembling the kind of multi-racial coalition that Jackson had put together.
Another excellent post. You quoted Claire Valdez: “We need to demonstrate that we can win” before we can expect these mainstream, less ideological unions to coalesce around left wing, pro-labor candidates." I think that in order for the unions to back a left-labor candidate it is important to recognize that many union members are not necessarily left-leaning in their ideology. Any truly pro-labor candidate (left, right or center) needs to strive to represent the core human values shared by a diverse group of people who certainly will not agree on a laundry list of ideological issues.
Pay some attention to Ro Khanna. He's solidly backed by PDA, plus he just joined AOC's 'Squad,' Justice Dems. His independent wealth enables him to keep his Silicon Valley seat despite all efforts by Thiel and Co. to drive him out. He's touching many bases, from the Epstein File to War powers. He's also sold on the radical industrial policy view for pro-worker structural reform. I'm not saying he's our best option. but don't ignore him.
I'm sure Ro Khanna would like to be the one to get the Bernie lane in 2028. He has better politics than a lot of Dems who will be running but it's hard for me to see the left unifying around him in the same way that they would AOC.
Ro is going to have serious credibility problems regarding his net worth, a lot of the left wing activist base (and the left wing Poster base) is really going to attack him hard for being, essentially, phony. The critique against Sanders having 3 houses was bullshit. The critique against Ro Khanna's stock trading has a lot more legs.
Politicians are tools and should be viewed as such. But, Ro Khanna traded tens of thousands of dollars (hundreds maybe, I'd have to go add it up) in Palantir stock last year as the Trump Administration was upping their contracts. I certainly don't trust him and I don't think he could ever build the trust he would need to run a credible left-wing campaign.
After the (still ongoing) whiny backlash to this country electing a dude named "Barack Obama," there's no way someone named Ro Khanna is getting elected. Also he's kind of slimy in his own right.
You do not mention foreign policy, not once. That's probably because the DSA doesn't want to talk about it.
Look, Bernie Sanders, AOC, Mamdani, they're ALL imperialists, all inextricably linked to the MIC and Empire. They're playing the classic Social Democrat card--throw a few more bennies at the masses while preserving the Empire. The aim is to prevent revolution, not to create one.
All of these candidates believe that capitalism can be successfully reformed, and that one of the two government parties can be co-opted by THE PEOPLE into doing the right thing. It's just silly, not to mention utterly hopeless.
We need a Popular Front whose primary goal is to end the Empire so that a Republic can finally be born. Both the Democratic and Republican parties must be destroyed. Reform is impossible. Wake up, smell the coffee, and remember how much more it costs you today than last year.
NO candidate who accepts Empire, or who thinks Israel has the right to exist, or who is for anything less than cutting the war budget by at LEAST half, or who wants to preserve NATO, is acceptable.
America First! It's the socialist thing to do. The MAGA hat is lying in the gutter. All we need do is to pick it up and point it in a different direction, but Jacobin and the DSA are the wrong way to go.
Great comment. If Butch Ware continues to be screwed by the Dems in the CA governor’s race, I hope he runs for POTUS in ‘28. Greens are building momentum in Britain; time to put the electability and can’t win BS to bed. The only thing keeping a socialist/anti-imperalist candidate from winning are cowards who vote based on the aforementioned BS. We’ve got almost three more years of hell to get though before the ‘28 election. Might be enough pain and misery coming to get the average voter to wake up and realize the duopoly is a dead end.
One of the most telling things you say in this post is: "Running a third party left wing candidate for president is a bad idea for reasons I have discussed before." And, yes, the main reason is... you are trapped in a two-party system. And *until now*, it's been the same here in the UK. But...
... And here's where I head off into speculative hope! I do see a real possibility that this could be disrupted. This has been precipitated by a far-right "challenger party", (Reform), splitting the Conservative/right-wing vote; and a Labour party that has abandoned all its socialist principles. This has left the door wide open on the the left, for The Green Party, (yes!), to move into that space. Ironically, without Reform, splitting the right, there would be virtually no chance for a left-wing challenger. But opinion polls now show all four parties within touching distance. And, with a first-past-the-post system, it's game on!
Glossary (for Americans):
- Conservative Party = GOP
- Labour Party = Dems
- Reform = MAGA
- The Green Party = left-wing + climate friendly policies
DSA has 100,000 members now? Cool, there are 3000 registered Working Families Party voters in Multnomah County (OR) alone.
DSA wants a Labor-Left coalition? Cool, in Oregon, unions along with community orgs and advocacy groups make up our executive committee.
Want to continue driving a wedge between corporatist Democrats and progressives who’ve worked within the Democratic Party because there hasn’t been a viable alternative? Check out the endorsers on the Working Families Guarantee:
I think it’s good that DSA is already working to ensure that there will be at least one candidate in the Democratic primary that they endorse and actively organize for. I think their navel-gazing rhetoric of “we’re doing a new thing!” (and yes, I read the piece) is just one more example of how they outright stink at coalition-building.
AOC has had two big tests (the rail strike and the genocide) and failed both in humiliating fashion. She has no credibility on the biggest issues of our time. She is a non-starter.
Said it in 2024 and saying it louder now: Shawn Fain for president.
It's I think a relic of my outdated upper-Millennial thinking that I'm worried that an AOC presidential run would be too soon for her. If she wants to run, she should run! She probably has as much of a chance as Bernie did (complimentary, I swear), but at least she forcibly drags the conversation leftward. She also forces the purity sickos in the DSA and WFP to contend with the compromises and games that need to be played at the highest levels to actually get things done.
Personally I would rather AOC primary Schumer...
I think any way she goes is correct. She could still stick with her House seat, and that would be cool too! Anything to keep her name in the conversation and fight the good fight.
Agreed!
I appreciate this and the original post. I don't have anything to contribute save a question: if not AOC, then who? Warren's time has passed. Bernie's too old. None of the other House members have a national profile save maybe Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib? Is there a visible left-leaning liberal governor I'm missing? Are we gonna have to stray into public figure territory? I'm genuinely asking here, I'm not at all trying to be snide. Because I've thought about this too and I don't know who that person can be, save her. And I'm not arguing it SHOULD be here but if there's some under-the-radar person, the time to show themselves is soon.
Pritzker could credibly slide into that lane, maybe Liz Warren tries again, but it's pretty slim pickings outside of AOC or (unfortunately) Ro Khanna.
I had forgotten about Pritzker. I'd like to see him run regardless. As for Khanna, Silicon Valley is unpopular now and it's tough to see that getting better before 2028, especially if/when the AI bubble finally pops. He's too inseparable to rise above it.
I can't see Pritzker accepting a DSA endorsement or even acknowledging one if it was offered. That said, Pritzker is probably the party's best bet in 2028. (I will puke if I have to vote for Newsom.) Still, I want AOC to run and she has my vote.
From here on out, we need a socialist in the presidential primary. Will she or another socialist win in 2028? Barring another Great Depression between now and 2028, the answer is no. But we need her voice.
Yeah, that and the whole slimy stock-trading thing is why I'm not very high on him.
Profiles can rise fast!
Agree. Few people had heard of Obama or thought he had a chance a year before the election.
My thought as well. The bench is kinda empty now, but what does it look after the midterms?
I don’t have any idea if he’d be interested and the last black guy to do it set some horrible things in motion that, in my opinion, have not yet run their course, but I am REALLY liking Joe Neguse these days.
An other issue is DSA’s failure until recently to take seriously the need for national coalition. The most powerful organization right now seems to be Indivisible. In a recent interview with Greenberg it seemed to me her position may not differ greatly from Bernie or AOC. As a DSA member very experienced in mass movements (last one was UFPJ re Iraq) I have been impatient with DSA’s lack of strategy for national coalition eg around ICE. We cannot back a candidate by leaning only on the wobbly labor union structure we have now. Indivisible has thousands of people who voted for or believe in Bernie and are involved in electoral politics.
Not looking forward to the arguments that will happen if AOC runs. I have leftist friends who find her 100% unacceptable. And I'm sympathetic to some of those arguments. She doesn't always have the best political instincts, and I'm personally not sure if she truly has the "juice" to make a successful run.
That said, I'm very anti-sectarian, so I'll err against intra-left molotov lobbing. But if two or more left-lane candidates announce and it doesn't get resolved pretty quickly, few hold grudges like a socialist scorned. Personally I'll support whoever clears out their orbit in the primary.
Socialists are very good at finding problems with candidates. And they're often not wrong. These can be principled objections about how far you compromise for electoral appeal, and especially imperialism. In my view imperialism is the biggest elephant in the room that's going to fuckin kill us all and progressives have been side-stepping it for decades. But the huge blindspot with these principled critiques tends to be, none of that matters much if leftists *never* win.
The American two party system really pits internal factions (factions which in a sane country w/ proportional representation would *never* be in the same party) against each other in a uniquely fucked way. It's an ideal system for knock-down-drag-out fights and deeply bitter anger.
The recent back and forth over the AOC endorsement in NYC and her shift in position on the Iron Dome made me much, much more hopeful that if she runs, she will both solicit and receive DSA's support, hugely reducing the risk of a split vote.
It sounds like it's union LEADERSHIP that's enamored of the DNC and backstage passes. It sure seems as tho union MEMBERS are more left-leaning. It's unfortunate that, as in corporate and political arenas, even union leadership ends up high on their own supply, giddy with their own perceived power, and failing to represent their members. Gee, and their can't possibly be any money exchange involved.
Back when I was more active in the Democratic Party, one of things that struck me about leaders of most unions was not so much that they were just addicted to access and feared being shut out but that there was great skepticism that leftist candidates could win general elections. Also, a lot of union guys I have known are genuinely hawkish in foreign policy views. I started the 2004 cycle as a Kucinich backer and almost every union guy I knew disliked him despite his very pro-union views. Why? "Department of Peace". Which admittedly was pretty dopey and very bad branding.
Many of the trades unions are in industries that supply the MIC, and war is good for business.
Very true, but I think for a lotta the guys I knew, it was more of a core belief than a pragmatic thing. Most Americans don't like unnecessary foreign wars but also, more so, don't like the idea of dialing down the military and appearing weak.
Well the two sentiments reinforce each other in practice. You may oppose war in the abstract, but nobody is going to march for there to be less food on their own plate, so if "stronger national defense" means more reliable work and more money in you and your colleagues' pockets you're not going to want to be seen as opposing that. After awhile it becomes more or less an article of faith in your shop that supporting pro-war candidates is what you do.
All of this is assisted by American unions being generally horrible at doing political education for the rank-and-file in the interest of not being seen as partisan -- and look how that's worked out for them.
I thought maybe we were in agreement, but you are looking at a much more abstract analysis than any of these people I am talking about would ever be thinking about. Nothing you write is untrue but you are adding layers of complexity that simply aren't there for most people. It is a gut level thing coming from how they are raised and educated, not a cohesive worldview. As for your second paragraph, all I can say is amen.
I want to amplify your comment about getting more union members. As you say, it is essential to build a larger, more powerful labor movement. I think it is also a condition precedent (as the philosophers say) to electing people to office who oppose neo-liberalism and who are committed to a pro-worker agenda. Politicians don't pay attention to workers because workers do not (yet) have sufficient leverage over politicians.
Nolan, you make great points, and I hope this group takes them seriously.
I also hope they're taking a page from Canada's Avi Lewis, who was recently elected as the federal NDP leadership. My sense is that they probably are. He ran a brilliant campaign, breaking fundraising and membership records. Here's a link to his website: https://lewisisleader.ca/
I'm so happy that we have an excellent, truly left wing candidate in Canada.
The last time I can remember thinking that there was a real possibility that a "left wing" candidate might take it all the way was right after the 1988 election, when Jesse Jackson had made the kind of inroads in the Democratic primaries, winning 13 of 54 primaries and caucuse, a far stronger showing than his first presidential campaign in 1984.. He appeared to be well positioned to lead his Rainbow Coalition to an even stronger finish, and maybe the nomination, in 1992. I have never understood why he decided not to continue to build on the momentum he had clearly demonstrated and run again in 1992. If anyone reading this post has any suggestions about why Jackson did not run, thereby opening the field to the neoliberal's Democratic Leadership Council's Bill Clinton, please post them here. Since Jackson failed to show up for 1992, no one else has come close to assembling the kind of multi-racial coalition that Jackson had put together.
Thanks for your help.
Another excellent post. You quoted Claire Valdez: “We need to demonstrate that we can win” before we can expect these mainstream, less ideological unions to coalesce around left wing, pro-labor candidates." I think that in order for the unions to back a left-labor candidate it is important to recognize that many union members are not necessarily left-leaning in their ideology. Any truly pro-labor candidate (left, right or center) needs to strive to represent the core human values shared by a diverse group of people who certainly will not agree on a laundry list of ideological issues.
Pay some attention to Ro Khanna. He's solidly backed by PDA, plus he just joined AOC's 'Squad,' Justice Dems. His independent wealth enables him to keep his Silicon Valley seat despite all efforts by Thiel and Co. to drive him out. He's touching many bases, from the Epstein File to War powers. He's also sold on the radical industrial policy view for pro-worker structural reform. I'm not saying he's our best option. but don't ignore him.
I'm sure Ro Khanna would like to be the one to get the Bernie lane in 2028. He has better politics than a lot of Dems who will be running but it's hard for me to see the left unifying around him in the same way that they would AOC.
I agree. AOC is far more magnetic than Ro. But if she decides not to run, it's a different story. And if she does run, she has my vote all the way.
Ro is going to have serious credibility problems regarding his net worth, a lot of the left wing activist base (and the left wing Poster base) is really going to attack him hard for being, essentially, phony. The critique against Sanders having 3 houses was bullshit. The critique against Ro Khanna's stock trading has a lot more legs.
Politicians are tools and should be viewed as such. But, Ro Khanna traded tens of thousands of dollars (hundreds maybe, I'd have to go add it up) in Palantir stock last year as the Trump Administration was upping their contracts. I certainly don't trust him and I don't think he could ever build the trust he would need to run a credible left-wing campaign.
After the (still ongoing) whiny backlash to this country electing a dude named "Barack Obama," there's no way someone named Ro Khanna is getting elected. Also he's kind of slimy in his own right.
You do not mention foreign policy, not once. That's probably because the DSA doesn't want to talk about it.
Look, Bernie Sanders, AOC, Mamdani, they're ALL imperialists, all inextricably linked to the MIC and Empire. They're playing the classic Social Democrat card--throw a few more bennies at the masses while preserving the Empire. The aim is to prevent revolution, not to create one.
All of these candidates believe that capitalism can be successfully reformed, and that one of the two government parties can be co-opted by THE PEOPLE into doing the right thing. It's just silly, not to mention utterly hopeless.
We need a Popular Front whose primary goal is to end the Empire so that a Republic can finally be born. Both the Democratic and Republican parties must be destroyed. Reform is impossible. Wake up, smell the coffee, and remember how much more it costs you today than last year.
NO candidate who accepts Empire, or who thinks Israel has the right to exist, or who is for anything less than cutting the war budget by at LEAST half, or who wants to preserve NATO, is acceptable.
America First! It's the socialist thing to do. The MAGA hat is lying in the gutter. All we need do is to pick it up and point it in a different direction, but Jacobin and the DSA are the wrong way to go.
Great comment. If Butch Ware continues to be screwed by the Dems in the CA governor’s race, I hope he runs for POTUS in ‘28. Greens are building momentum in Britain; time to put the electability and can’t win BS to bed. The only thing keeping a socialist/anti-imperalist candidate from winning are cowards who vote based on the aforementioned BS. We’ve got almost three more years of hell to get though before the ‘28 election. Might be enough pain and misery coming to get the average voter to wake up and realize the duopoly is a dead end.
Brit here.
One of the most telling things you say in this post is: "Running a third party left wing candidate for president is a bad idea for reasons I have discussed before." And, yes, the main reason is... you are trapped in a two-party system. And *until now*, it's been the same here in the UK. But...
... And here's where I head off into speculative hope! I do see a real possibility that this could be disrupted. This has been precipitated by a far-right "challenger party", (Reform), splitting the Conservative/right-wing vote; and a Labour party that has abandoned all its socialist principles. This has left the door wide open on the the left, for The Green Party, (yes!), to move into that space. Ironically, without Reform, splitting the right, there would be virtually no chance for a left-wing challenger. But opinion polls now show all four parties within touching distance. And, with a first-past-the-post system, it's game on!
Glossary (for Americans):
- Conservative Party = GOP
- Labour Party = Dems
- Reform = MAGA
- The Green Party = left-wing + climate friendly policies
I know that I am partisan, but.
DSA has 100,000 members now? Cool, there are 3000 registered Working Families Party voters in Multnomah County (OR) alone.
DSA wants a Labor-Left coalition? Cool, in Oregon, unions along with community orgs and advocacy groups make up our executive committee.
Want to continue driving a wedge between corporatist Democrats and progressives who’ve worked within the Democratic Party because there hasn’t been a viable alternative? Check out the endorsers on the Working Families Guarantee:
https://workingfamilies.org/guarantee/
I think it’s good that DSA is already working to ensure that there will be at least one candidate in the Democratic primary that they endorse and actively organize for. I think their navel-gazing rhetoric of “we’re doing a new thing!” (and yes, I read the piece) is just one more example of how they outright stink at coalition-building.
New York State has ~60,000 active enrolled Working Families Party voters, up ~20% from 2023.
AOC has had two big tests (the rail strike and the genocide) and failed both in humiliating fashion. She has no credibility on the biggest issues of our time. She is a non-starter.
Said it in 2024 and saying it louder now: Shawn Fain for president.